General Electric's acquisition of Universal Pictures won't be final for a few months, but the corporate giant is already hoping for some synergy by spinning off a TV series based on Universal's Van Helsing movie (Transylvania) for its NBC Network.  As an article in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times points out, a lot is riding on the success of Universal's  $150 million Van Helsing film, which stars Hugh Jackman and opens May 7.  In addition to the TV series, which is unlikely to see the light of day if Van Helsing flops, Universal is planning a Van Helsing attraction for its theme park, releasing its classic 1930s and 1940s horror films on DVD, and preparing an animated Van Helsing DVD adventure featuring the voice of Hugh Jackman.  The stakes are high indeed for Universal, which is unlikely to get the green light for anymore mega-budget productions from the notoriously tight-fisted GE if Van Helsing stiffs at the box office.

The stakes are also potentially high for pop culture retailers since Van Helsing offers a number of merchandising opportunities including autograph-laced trading cards from Comic Images (see 'Comic Images Does Van Helsing'), action figures and toys from Jakk's Pacific (see 'Jakk's Pacific Expands Boy Toy Offerings'), collector figures from Sideshow Toys (see 'Sideshow Gets Van Helsing License'), and sensationally-priced DVD collections featuring the top Universal monsters (see 'Universal's Monster Legacy DVD Collections').  If Van Helsing does well at the box office and is succeeded by Transylvania on the small screen, retailers could see a continuation of interest in the Universal monsters that could last all the way to the debut of the inevitable Van Helsing sequel and beyond.